Splinter Cell Will Get a Remake
No more rumors - Ubisoft confirmed that a remake of Splinter Cell is being made. Developed by Ubisoft Toronto, the game will be powered by the Snowdrop engine, and the creators argue that they want to deliver an experience faithful to the original - without an open world.
I bring excellent news for stealth game fans. Ubisoft has finally greenlit the Splinter Cell series for a remake of the first installment from 2002. It's being developed by a branch of the French company from Toronto (responsible, among others, for SC: Blacklist), and the main goal of the devs is to provide an experience faithful to the original - so it won't feature, fortunately, an open world, etc. - in modern visuals. The remake is to be powered by the Snowdrop engine, which is used, among others, in the development of the great-looking Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Unfortunately, we didn't got to know even an approximate release date of the game. The developers are just beginning to work on the project and are still assembling the team. Three of them - namely Chris Auty, Matt West, and Peter Handrinos - presented their approach to the refresh of this iconic stealthy game quite thoroughly. From their statements it's clear that they're the right people in the right place. For example, the first of them described the essence of Splinter Cell in the following words:
"It’s important for us to preserve the sense of mastery by supporting players who observe the situations, make their plan, use their gadgets, and outsmart the enemy [...] Ideally, they end up coming out on the other side with no one having realized you were even there."
Matt West even asserted that the developers are aiming for a "remaster plus" of sorts - going a bit further than just revamping the audiovisuals.
"There's stuff that simply needs to be redone from scratch to be up to snuff for a modern gameplay experience. With that, though, what do we need to do to absolutely preserve the feeling of early Splinter Cell? We’re going to be straddling the line between the spirit of the old, and the comfort of the new, so that we can excite and surprise new players, but also make sure that when our returning players pick up the controller, they have that sigh of relief."
The latest Splinter Cell has been released over eight years, and it's been almost two decades since the first game launched. So, responding to Matt West's question, Peter Handrinos assured that the developers would take the time to investigate:
"[...] what this means for us, for light and shadow, for animation tech, for gameplay, AI, even audio. We're going to ask ourselves, 'where does it make sense for us to innovate? What not only fits with the legacy, but brings the game up to a level that will be expected of us, and where can we surprise our players?' We want to bring them something new, yet still connect them to that feeling that they had two decades ago, playing that masterpiece for the first time."
